


Candyfloss and Novocaine

by Cherrys_Criminal_Mind, mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Gen, Murder, Murderers, Reader-Insert, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 07:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13542813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherrys_Criminal_Mind/pseuds/Cherrys_Criminal_Mind, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)





	Candyfloss and Novocaine

Wetness seeped through the thin cotton of her pumps and she wriggled her toes inside. They were ruined, she’d have to discard them, burn them most probably. But it was worth it, and she could easily purchase another pair. The wind blew through the trees and she sniffed, that sweet coppery smell flooding her lungs. Taking one last look down at her feet, she smiled. The buzz that she felt right now would last a few days and she would relish it whilst it did. It never lasted long enough though And then, she’d find another one. It was a shame but they all let themselves be taken so easily by her, to be used by her. Except, they thought they were going to be used for her sexual highs, not for this. She glanced around the abandoned park, peering between the trees to make sure the case was clear for her to make her escape.

“Drop the weapon, Y/N.”

Her heart leapt and then sank. She recognized the voice as that of the Agent that had interviewed her months ago. One of her…she guessed she’d call him a victim, had been captured on video surveillance leaving a club with the night she’d killed him. The footage had been released with her as a person of interest. She visited the BAU herself, explaining that yes she had left with him but aside from a quick snog, nothing more had happened. Although she knew that they would look into her life extensively, she was fairly certain that they wouldn’t find anything to convince them that she was the female night stalker. Sometimes, she struggled to convince herself that she was this person too. How could she be when she presented herself to the world so differently.

Agent Reid looked directly at the woman, the lifeless body at her feet. On either side of him his colleague moved in, forming a circle around her, their weapons raised.

“Drop the knife, Y/N. There’s nowhere for you to go.”

An almost cruel smile formed over her features, a smile that completely transformed the sweet face that had everyone she knew thinking she was Mary Sunshine.

“And if I don’t drop the knife, Agent Reid?” her voice was light and airy, like a song on a summers night. Even the sound of her own voice betrayed the feelings inside. She wondered how she managed it for so long - the balance of candyfloss and novocaine - sunshine to the world and complete and utter numbness inside. 

“Then we’ll be forced to take action.”

Spencer didn’t want it to come to that, he was still having trouble connecting the profile they’d created with this woman. This woman whose friends sung her praises, who had never missed a day of work in her life, had graduated top of her class at college and high school and who volunteered at a local battered women’s shelter. But the one shred of DNA they’d found put her at the scene of the seventh crime and that combined with the footage of her leaving with the third victim made the team rethink their profile.

And now here they were.

Spencer couldn’t work out what had bought this woman to this place. But he wanted to know. And to find that information out, she’d have to be taken in alive.

Y/N knew why she here. She also knew that no one in her life would be able to comprehend that she had committed these crimes. “You might have to take action, Agent Reid.” The idea of going back to the way she used to feel made the bile churn in her stomach. One would think it was the body at her feet, slowly flooding the sidewalk with a coppery scent, but no - that was what allowed her to feel. 

“I don’t want to have to do that,” Spencer replied, his voice shaky with doubt and pity. He remembered interviewing her. At the time, he had looked at her and assumed that she’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, having walked out of the club with a soon-to-be murder victim, but looking at her now Spencer found himself wondering how he’d ever thought her innocent. “Why Y/N?”

If she had been able to feel, Y/N would’ve felt for him in that moment. His question was probably the closest she’d ever been to feeling aside from the nighttime activities she indulged in. “Why what? Why do I do what I do?”

Spencer nodded, his eyes somehow both fixed on her face and the knife she was still wielding. 

“Tell me what you know about me, Agent Reid. You’ve looked into my background?”

They had and Spencer had conducted even further research because he couldn’t believe that his profiling of her had been so off. “I did.” He lowered his weapon and holstered it while the rest of his team kept their guns trained on Y/N. “You had a great childhood - a mother and father, happily married and who loved you. The only child.” It’s what he had hoped for all is life; she had it and she destroyed it. He had to know why. “You were on the soccer team, played flute. Your mom even put you in ballet for a time.”

The woman before him chuckled derisively at the memory. Soccer had been okay, entertaining enough, but flute and then ballet had been the icing on the proverbial cake. While the other dancing students did their pirouettes, smiles painted upon their small features, she realized she was different; all of her smiles were put on - even then. Her attention was ripped away from her sham of a childhood and back toward the Agent in front of her. She could see that he was hurt. Or at least it seemed like hurt. 

“You had an exemplary school record. From elementary to college, you had friends, maintained a 4.0 GPA and participated in extracurriculars. You volunteered with women’s organizations. Everyone we spoke to had nothing but nice things to say. I-I don’t understand. Why?”

That was exactly why she couldn’t leave this place. “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be normal?” She asked. She knew she wasn’t - never had been - and she knew from the moment she started that what she was doing was wrong, but it was the only outlet the brought her feeling.

Suddenly, a knowing glance flashed upon the Agent’s eyes. “Yes, I do.”

“That was me. Ever since I was a child.” Having someone know the real her seemed like something she needed before leaving this mortal coil; she found herself divulging everything. “I had everything a child could want, but it didn’t matter. Nothing made me genuinely happy. I went to sleep everything night with a hollowness inside my chest. Like I had coasted throughout the day, seen things, heard things, but none of it actually registered.” 

She took a deep breath and glanced at the Agents before her; most of them had unchanged faces, their eyes trained to shoot at any given moment. But Agent Reid was hanging on her every word. “My mother started with ballet, flute was next and then soccer. It was during soccer that I found out I enjoyed hurting people. When I’d get into it on the field, maybe accidentally kick someone, a jolt would shoot through me. I knew that wasn’t normal. My parents always told me to play nice with others. As I got older, I asked to participate in other sports because it was the only way I felt anything, but even that didn’t last forever. Then I had to try something else. First animals, then people.” She motioned to the body at her feet. “The first time I killed someone…It was the most amazing feeling. This stupid, stupid man had tried to assault what I’m assuming was his girlfriend, but she managed to get away. I may not be able to feel but I knew that was wrong. Anyway, I banked on his intoxication to let me in. He thought I wanted him,” she laughed sharply, the hollowness of it all rolling through those around her. 

“For a moment, I made him believe he was going to get what he wanted, and then I took my knife, this knife,” she said, lifting her knife swiftly into the air in the front of her face. Agent Reid’s friends instantly refocused their collective aim. “And I slashed it across his throat. The red that spilled from his neck…the look in his eyes as the life left his body. It was all so…thrilling. None of the subsequent ones were as good as the first, but it did the trick. It made me feel something. Finally. I don’t expect anyone to understand.”

“Put down the knife, Y/N.” Agent Reid’s voice was even more pointed than before. She could sense his desperation.

She couldn’t do that. Doing that meant being taken into custody, being taken into custody meant never feeling anything again. With a smile toward the agent before her, she lifted her knife, still dripping in another man’s blood and approached him, blade cutting through air. 

He didn’t move.

A sharp feeling tore into her arm, then another to her gut, but after that it was a feeling she was quite accustomed to. Looking down at her arm, she noticed the bleed - brachial bleed. “I’m a goner, Agent Reid,” she huffed, her smile actually genuine. He’d appeared at her side, cradling her in his arms, the knife now a distance away.

“Why did you do that? You weren’t going to hurt me,” Agent Reid said.

“Only because I knew your teammates would shoot me. I can’t go back to not feeling anything anymore, Agent Reid. That’s worse.” Not that she feared numbness, she didn’t, she was used to it; she just hated it. 

Agent Reid tried in vain to stop the bleed in her arm, but she could feel a comfortable numbness, something new for her, take over little by little. “You’re wrong,” he said. “I don’t empathize, but I understand.”

“How could you possibly understand?” This agent was the complete opposite of her. She didn’t know him that well, but what she could see was her 180-degree opposite. “You feel for people. Hell, you’re feeling for me right now.”

“I understand because I know what it’s like to be afraid of your own mind.”

That was a loaded statement. If she had more time, she’d probably ask him what that meant, probably nothing like her, but still intriguing all the same. “I wasn’t afraid. I’m not afraid.”

Fear was living as she was with no outlet. Fear was being. Fear wasn’t death. This was a cool numbness, and then there would be nothing. No numbness. No more striving for feeling. No more anything. “It’s okay to be afraid,” Agent Reid said, his voice now fading into the distance. He was sweet - truly trying to paint some humanity onto her before she died. 

“I’m not afraid, Agent Reid.” She grabbed his hand, more a gesture for him than for herself. “Thank you for understanding.”


End file.
